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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846801">Miles Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamaraKurtofsky/pseuds/SamaraKurtofsky'>SamaraKurtofsky</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Glee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU Paul, AU after NBK, Bad Parenting, DKWEEK2020, F/F, F/M, M/M, Not Blaine or Klaine Friendly, Religion, conversion therapy, corrective rape, it does have a happy ending, mention of suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:20:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamaraKurtofsky/pseuds/SamaraKurtofsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Dave Karofsky Week 2020.</p><p>The story takes a different path after Dave gets outed for kissing Kurt. He is sent to a place of despair, pain, and sorrow, too similar to Hell. The memory of Kurt and a friendship born between those infernal walls help him survive and start a journey that leads to love and healing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kurt Hummel/David Karofsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dave Karofsky Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please check the tags and the warnings before starting to read. This fic contains elements that could be triggering, such as physical violence with the intent of changing a person's sexuality, and corrective rape.  All of it happens in the first chapter, but it's also talked about in the second one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Kurt told me what you did.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Dave looked around. People were passing close to him, busy with laughing and careless conversations. If he stopped for a second, he could hear their words, one by one, and he was sure they could hear the conversation that was happening right now. He started shaking, in fear and rage. </em>
</p><p>“<em>Oh yeah,” he tried to sound sarcastic, as if he couldn't care less of what was happening. “What's that?”</em></p><p>
  <em>Inside, he was dying.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He didn't know who that boy who was talking to him was, or why did he care so much to make him embrace the gay. He was shorter, and he was wearing a private school uniform. His hair was dark, his skin tanned.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave wondered if he was Kurt's boyfriend. Maybe that's why he wanted to ruin his life.</em>
</p><p>“<em>You kissed me,” Kurt said.</em></p><p><em>He could deny the truth, or at least try. He could beg them to stop, to shut up.</em> <em>He would have, but he was scared to attract even more attention on the situation. The words were out already, and nothing could have made them disappear.</em></p><p>
  <em>He grabbed the preppy kid by his jacket and slammed him to the cold metal, until Kurt stopped him, pushing him away as he did in the past.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As he did when Dave kissed him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The world was spinning, and Dave knew it was the beginning of the end.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p>Gossip started a few hours later. Whispers in the corridors. Stranger’s eyes that looked at him passing by. He avoided Azimio and the other guys on the football team and shut himself in the bathroom. Rivers of cold sweat streaked his forehead. He hadn't eaten, but the nausea made him want to vomit.</p><p>He pinched himself on the hand, trying to believe in the illusion that it was all a nightmare and he was about to wake up.</p><p>
  <em>It can't be true. It can't be true.</em>
</p><p>He threw his Letterman jacket on the floor and scratched his arms until he hurt himself.</p><p>He remembered Mark Walker, and at that moment he began to sob.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark1" name="Bookmark1"></a>
  <em>Debra Karofsky loved to hum and sing. Her favorites were Doris Day and Johnny Cash.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You make me happy when skies are gray.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave was absentmindedly watching TV, twisting his fork on his plate. As he did as a child, he had distanced the potatoes from each other to create the illusion that he had eaten more than he did.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His grades were falling, and when his father tried to talk to him, Dave would shut himself in his bedroom, put his headphones on and listen to music at high volume, trying to get away from it all. He loved Michael Jackson and Queen, but he had to listen to them in secret because his mom wouldn't approve of it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave wanted to be in a separate, distant, unreachable universe, and by listening to </em>
  <em>“Thriller”</em>
  <em> repeatedly he could dissociate himself from the world around him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mark Walker appeared on the television screen that evening, so similar to many others, and his blood ran cold.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mark was almost seventeen the day he decided to die.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was a boy like many others. Tall, broad-shouldered. He wore his blond hair cut too short, and he had green eyes. </em>
  <em>On the news, they</em>
  <em> said that he loved football and playing Call of Duty.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave squeezed the fabric of his pants tightly between his fingers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mark looked like any other boy, but he had a secret that made him different, a secret that had cost him his life.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Like Dave.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He loved boys, not girls.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>People that should have loved him unconditionally had decided to try to cure him. For his sake, they said. To bring him closer to God.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But Mark had known Hell, even before he died.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You'll never know dear, how much I love you,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please don't take my sunshine away</em>
  <em>.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Debra shrugged. "Poor boy. His parents were just trying to help him. He preferred to die as an abomination rather than accepting God in his heart."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave wanted to scream, throw the plate on the floor and cry until he no longer had tears. Ask for their forgiveness, for their mercy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If there was a God, none of his prayers had ever been heard.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Paul Karofsky continued to read something on his cell phone, as if he hadn't heard his wife.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In his heart, Dave cried out for his dad, like so many years ago, when he was just a little boy who wanted attention. He needed to be told that everything would be fine.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Paul was not a religious person by any means. He never missed Sunday church service though, but only to make Debra happy. She was in charge of the house, and Paul did everything she asked him to just to not irritate her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave dismissed himself from the table, saying that he had to study. He had had enough of being around them. He shut himself in his bedroom once again, slamming the door.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He started some music and lay down on the bed, still fully dressed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave imagined Kurt. His slender fingers touching him between his legs, their lips getting closer and closer. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He touched himself, crying into a pillow, wet with sweat and tears.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I</em>
  <em>'m tired of you telling the story your way,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You're causing confusion, you think it's okay, damn it,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You keep changing up rules, while I keep playing the game,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I can't take it much longer, I think I might go insane.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p>It was written in red paint on the front porch. Just three letters. The mask that Dave had created, for good and for bad, had crumbled.</p><p>
  <em>"Fag".</em>
</p><p>Dave could no longer pretend it wasn't real. He had marked his own fate the moment he kissed Kurt Hummel, and it was too late for regrets, or to run and hide.</p><p>For him, that kiss had been a desperate cry for help. A declaration of love, somehow, said in the most wrong way.</p><p>Maybe it was all a punishment. The word <em>"fag" </em>was there to remind him of who he really was. They called it divine justice, a topic on which a multitude of books had been written.</p><p>Dave tore a piece of paper out of his math notebook and wrote until it was time to go to school.</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p><a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark2" name="Bookmark2"></a>The whispers became insults. The looks turned into physical violence. Azimio called him disgusting, and said that if he tried to get close to him, he would regret it. Finn and Puck wanted to talk to him, but Dave couldn't see or hear them.</p><p>Everything seemed clouded by a poisonous mist, which prevented him from breathing.</p><p>He didn't even cry when the guys on the hockey team stole his Letterman jacket and set it on fire near the dumpsters. He just remained passive like a plaster mannequin, envisioning himself in the flames.</p><p>
  <em>Divine justice.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You are just a scared little boy who can't handle how extraordinary ordinary you are!"</em>
</p><p>He was. He always had been. That's why, like a coward, he hurt Kurt instead of himself.</p><p>Dave was just an abomination that tried in vain to mix with the normal people, yet failed.</p><p>*</p><p><a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark3" name="Bookmark3"></a>After class, Kurt was waiting for him near his locker. He was sitting on the floor with his eyes red and wet with tears. His arms were wrapped around his legs, and he was whispering, “I'm sorry, David. I'm so sorry."</p><p>Dave figured that Kurt would soon forget about him and go back to singing.</p><p><em>Memorize him</em>, he told himself.</p><p>His blue eyes, in which he had never noticed the green and golden shades, the curve of his nose, and the rosy coloration of his cheeks. His skin, the same color as snow. That kiss that had changed everything and the taste of those lips that he could no longer remember.</p><p>He grabbed Kurt's hand, and to his surprise he didn't pull back. He continued to utter his apologies, again and again.</p><p>Dave also memorized that touch, that brief moment in which he left that crumpled and badly written sheet of paper in Kurt's hand.</p><p>He wanted to say so much, but he couldn't find the voice.</p><p>For a moment, they looked into each other eyes. Then Dave walked away and never looked back.</p><p>*</p><p>He called out to his father, imagining him running to his rescue like a hero.</p><p>Dave was sure he was shaking, as he begged him to be saved.</p><p>His mother recited the Bible verses, assuring him that he would be healed, but Dave, clinging to his father's pants, barely heard her.</p><p>
  <em>"Don't let them take me away!"</em>
</p><p>But again, silence. Paul had looked at Debra, and she was resolute, pointing where Dave was to the men who were there to take him. He wondered if she really believed it was the right choice, as there were no tears in her eyes, only indignation. If Debra had any doubts, she hadn't shown it.</p><p>Paul, however, was shaking. In his silence he knew that once out of that door, the Dave he knew would never return.</p><p>
  <em>If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.</em>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark4" name="Bookmark4"></a>
  <em>"</em>
  <em>No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.</em>
  <em>"</em>
</p><p>Dave arrived to Hope Everlasting Living and Learning Academy, but in HELL all the demons were dressed in white. Some were wearing t-shirts with the words <em>"The Lord will heal you"</em>, as if it was a cruel joke.</p><p>That was not a place of healing.</p><p>From outside, it looked like a normal small private boarding school, but the various quotes about prayer and righteousness were pretty clear about the goal those people had in mind. They wanted to make people feel wrong, until it destroyed them.</p><p>The gates of Hell closed at his entrance, and Dave kicked, pawed, and screamed loudly.</p><p>His mom said that it was like a Christian high school, and sure, there were kids studying, but they were too quiet, as if they were robots instead of real people. There was no sparkle in their eyes. No one was laughing.</p><p>It felt like a tomb.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. </em>
</p><p>His room was small and stifling. There were no windows. The air reeked of urine. There were four white walls, a cot, and a small desk with a table lamp. On the wall hung a painting depicting the Virgin Mary, who was holding baby Jesus in her arms.</p><p>There was no hatred in her eyes, but the world made up for this lack all too well.</p><p>Dave preferred not to look at them and remained in the dark.</p><p>It was laughable how they presented a good exterior, with all the marble and the beautiful garden, while inside it felt and looked like a prison. They took his phone, gave him textbooks and said he would not be able to access internet, as it would lead him to temptation and sin.</p><p>He would be able to call home, but just on a very strict schedule.</p><p>That was how prisoners felt like, Dave was sure.</p><p>They made him wear gray – a simple light shirt and a pair of comfortable pants. He was reassured and told that God had a plan for him.</p><p>He wondered if Mark Walker had also died in the same room.</p><p>When Dave closed his eyes, he could hear the murmur of the prayers being repeated in the common room.</p><p>
  <em>Lord Jesus, forgive me. I confess I have been offering myself over to sin, and now I am its slave. I renounce it. I renounce my sins.</em>
</p><p><a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark5" name="Bookmark5"></a>He slipped between the covers, curled up in a fetal position. He repeated the words he had written to Kurt in a low voice, until they changed into sobs.</p><p>He wondered if it was possible to drown in his own tears.</p><p>That night, he saw the shadow of the Devil chasing him in a deep forest. His screams turned into demons with the appearance of bodies embedded in each other. Sticky mud swallowed him up, without him having something to hold on to. Everything had the color of blood.</p><p>He noticed that the Devil came from inside his body, like a cancer that devoured him from within.</p><p>When the Devil grabbed him, Dave looked at him as if in a mirror. They had the same face.</p><p>*</p><p><a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark6" name="Bookmark6"></a>The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months.</p><p>Dave repeated his prayers every day, ate at the cafeteria, and went to bed early. They gave him several sets of clothes, all identical to each other. In group therapy, he said very few words. He assured them that he wanted to change, and they were proud of him.</p><p>He wasn't sure he wanted to change, though. Disappearing was closer to what he really desired.</p><p>To vanish into thin air.</p><p>Classes were the only time he could pretend to be in a normal environment. They studied like in any school, took notes, and had homework. The boys were always paired up with the girls, and it wasn't allowed for two people of the same sex to spend time alone. The teachers and the guards said that thinking of sin was the same as committing it.</p><p>They were supposed to keep their minds pure, be righteous.</p><p>When he closed his eyes, Dave still saw Kurt. Those eyes he had memorized, that light touch of their hands. Sexual desire, however, seemed to have disappeared. It was all about comfort, contact with reality.</p><p>Dave loved to imagine Kurt singing, his crystalline voice between those infernal walls. It was his most intimate secret, his form of rebellion.</p><p>*</p><p>The routine was interrupted by the anger of a red-haired boy. Dave was sure he was no older than fourteen.</p><p>He raged furiously against one of the guards, throwing his plate of peas and grilled meat in his direction. He gritted his teeth like an angry dog and jumped on the guard with all his might.</p><p>He was tiny and seemed lost in his gray shirt. He asked to go home, calling out for his mom. He insisted that God would punish them all for what they were doing.</p><p>When the guard pushed the child to the ground and began to kick him in the stomach, those present remained silent.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>Dave opened his eyes and floated on a mattress suspended over the ocean.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He heard the sound of the waves, the brackish breeze, some splashing fish below him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kurt's fingers touched his hair, twisting it around his fingers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Didn't you want to be a hero, as a kid?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave nodded, remembering when he had the ardent desire to save the innocent, protect the weak, put on weird tight</em>
  <em>, </em>
  <em>and hover in the sky, like Superman.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He raised a hand to the infinite blue and felt like he was touching the sun.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Things change," he whispered. "I've become a monster."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave had never become a hero. He hadn't saved anyone.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He thought about throwing himself in the water, getting lost in the ocean, becoming one with the universe around him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave didn't want to be bad. God is righteous and rewards heroes, while the bad guys end up in Hell.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kurt grabbed his hand, and their fingers intertwined. The sun reflected off his porcelain skin, and Dave felt a flicker of desire, as in the old days. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>"It's never too late to be a hero, David Karofsky."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p>When he woke up from that dream, Dave’s palms were covered with blood.</p><p>The guard was on the ground, one hand pressed against his nose.</p><p>The red-haired boy looked at him. Admiration? Fear?</p><p>
  <em>It's never too late to be a hero.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p><br/>Dave bit his lips until it hurt when the belt hit his back, tearing the skin.</p><p>He held back a scream, and counted. He didn't know if it was four strikes or five. His vision blurred, silent tears streaking his cheeks.</p><p>
  <em>Our Father, who art in heaven,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hallowed be thy Name.</em>
</p><p>He imagined Kurt, dressed in white. He was different from the guards, because there was no hatred in his eyes, and his arms gave off pure light.</p><p>It was an intense glow, like that of the sun.</p><p>Dave held out his hand, but was unable to touch that light. On the contrary, he felt increasingly distant, as if he was trying to grab the air. He was unworthy, dirty.</p><p>
  <em>Thy kingdom come,</em>
  <em><br/>T</em>
  <em>hy will be done,</em>
</p><p>The belt struck him again, and he gasped. Perhaps if he had atoned for his sins he could have reached the light. Kurt.</p><p>
  <em>On earth as it is in heaven.</em>
</p><p>People become martyrs through pain and sacrifice. That's what they taught him.</p><p>
  <em>Give us this day our daily bread,</em>
  <em><br/>A</em>
  <em>nd forgive us our trespasses.</em>
</p><p>He asked Kurt for forgiveness, but he knew he didn't deserve it, as only God could forgive sinners.</p><p>
  <em>As we forgive those who trespass against us.</em>
</p><p>He felt the blood on his back, but the pain disappeared slowly, changing into water, into light. Pain would clean out his sins, and God would love him. Kurt would love him.</p><p>He murmured his apologies again, as the belt stroke on him. He was sure that Kurt was smiling, but it was a smile full of mercy.</p><p>If only he could remember the taste of his lips... Just for a moment. An ephemeral, insignificant instant.</p><p>
  <em>And lead us not into temptation,</em>
</p><p>Weren't all men created in the image and likeness of God? Dave was a man. Made of flesh, bones, and blood. His pain, his tears, those scarlet spots that marked the white floor, like a field of poppies, was the proof.</p><p>
  <em>But deliver us from evil.</em>
</p><p>A temptation, a stain that marked his soul. The reason he ended up in Hell.</p><p>Yet as a man, created in the image and likeness of God, Dave couldn't stop hoping to cling to that memory.</p><p>Just for a moment. An ephemeral, insignificant instant.</p><p>
  <em>Amen.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p>Dave's partner in class was always incredibly quiet. They never spoke except for exchanging pleasantries, and they mostly minded their own business.</p><p>She had very long, straight brown hair and pale skin. He never saw her eating much, and once he offered her some of his food, to which she politely declined.</p><p>In another life, he thought she would be considered a beauty. It was easy to imagine her with a high ponytail and a cheerleader uniform. Instead, she read the Bible and marked some verses with a pink highlighter. Dave couldn't see which ones.</p><p>She smelled good, and Dave liked to sit next to her. In that place silence was expected, but theirs was always comfortable instead of awkward.</p><p>He was drawn to her, and he didn't know if it was because he was supposed to be. He slowly noticed small things, like how she liked to play with the cross around her neck, or the flowers she drew on the corner of her textbooks.</p><p>At times, Dave longed for human connection, and he wanted to reach out to her, but he didn't know how. What he was supposed to say?</p><p>
  <em>I'm sorry. You shouldn't be here. Did you ever get whipped?</em>
</p><p>Everything was wrong, and it didn't matter what Dave said. He couldn't make it right.</p><p>*</p><p>Dave noticed that after she made her weekly call home, she looked like drained of every human ability to function. She couldn't read or eat, and she mostly sat in a corner, looking at the wall.</p><p>He couldn't imagine what her family told her.</p><p>Dave's mom was pretending nothing was wrong. She talked about his grades and gossiped about the neighbors. They were trivial, pointless conversations that Dave forgot as soon as the call ended. His father didn't even talk to him once, possibly out of guilt.</p><p>He felt alone, but he wasn't dwelling on it. He didn't even consider them his parents anymore. They were just people he had to interact with based on the unlucky situation of them giving birth to him.</p><p>That girl was different. Whatever they said to her, it was slowly destroying her soul.</p><p>She was falling to pieces in front of his eyes, and for some reason he cared.</p><p>
  <em>A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.</em>
</p><p>Dave's hand slowly brushed hers. So skinny, and frail.</p><p>The first person he had touched in months.</p><p>She looked up at him and didn't pull back. He could imagine that in Hell people weren't found of touching each other, and she wasn't different.</p><p>With that gesture, they were creating a bond to survive, something to live for and that was real.</p><p>“<em>Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”</em></p><p>“What is your name?” she asked.</p><p>Dave imagined she had a beautiful singing voice, but nothing to sing about. “David. Dave.”</p><p>
  <em>"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."</em>
</p><p>“I'm Serena.”</p><p>*</p><p><a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark7" name="Bookmark7"></a>The woman in the video moaned, while the man entered her.</p><p>Forward and backward, forward and backward. It seemed like the tolling of a clock, the refrain of a song.</p><p>Dave lost himself in the sound of flesh against flesh, of those feigned moans. He wondered if the people in that video were also in Hell, and their torture was to pretend to feel pleasure under everyone's eyes.</p><p>Being nothing but their own used and abused bodies.</p><p>There was nothing sensual, or erotic, in those mechanical gestures.</p><p>He remembered feeling sexual pleasure in the past, touching himself while imagining Kurt's body against his own, their breaths mixing while Kurt's legs, clinging to his back, trembled with the imminent orgasm.</p><p>He had washed his hands and cried, cried, until dawn.</p><p>
  <em>Hate the sin, love the sinner.</em>
</p><p>Dave remembered those moments, and got an erection.</p><p>He would never tell anyone the truth.</p><p>Again, he was the Devil.</p><p>*</p><p>Dave and Serena found comfort in each other's presence. They let their feet touch under table, they walked holding hands. Sometimes Serena took his arms, and traced words on his skin using her finger.</p><p>They were all beautiful words, words he almost forgot existed.</p><p>People looked at them as a project that turned out successful, and they let the rumors spread. It made their lives easier, and the punishments less harsh.</p><p>Serena started to talk endlessly to him, even if it was just about the weather. Dave found out she loved making sweets, and her favorite flowers were lilies.</p><p>One day, she wanted to have many children and pets, so her house would be full of love and innocence. Like him, they made her believe she was dirty, but Dave couldn't imagine someone more sweet and pure.</p><p>He knew he would give his life for her, and that she felt the same way. It made him feel like his life was worth living. She had been there longer than him, but they couldn't kill her beauty. There was hope.</p><p>She became Dave's confidant, his role model, and his hero.</p><p>“I want to go home,” she repeated, over and over. Sometimes she cried, sometimes she just looked defeated.</p><p>Dave didn't know what home she wanted to return to. Maybe just the outside world. He was the same.</p><p>He wanted a home, but he lost the one he had in the past.</p><p>Dave spent his evening studying and thinking. They had to escape, run away. Living for love, and not for fear.</p><p>During one of those sleepless nights, he just knew what he had to do.</p><p>*</p><p>Serena's brown hair covered her breasts, her legs trembled, as if she was cold.</p><p>Dave figured it was winter, outside.</p><p>At first he could not explain to himself why she was sitting on his cot, naked with her very pale skin and those brown eyes that stared at somewhere in the room, and then at him.</p><p>
  <em>Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.</em>
</p><p>The reality of what was going on hit Dave like a moving train, and left him breathless, shattered. He shook his head and knelt in front of the guard.</p><p>He wanted to throw up on that t-shirt. "<em>The Lord can heal you.</em>" What a <em>lie</em>.</p><p>
  <em>I didn't want this. Please make it stop.</em>
</p><p>Dave knew it was his fault. He created this evil, and Serena was about to pay for it.</p><p>She, so pure and innocent. The lamb of Christ.</p><p>There was no healing in evil. There could be no redemption if there was no sin.</p><p>
  <em>And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.</em>
</p><p>"<em>No,</em>" he begged. "Please, no!"</p><p>The guard grabbed Dave's face, and forced him to look at Serena.</p><p>
  <em>Wash and make yourselves clean.</em>
  <em>
    <br/>
  </em>
  <em>Take your evil deeds out of my sight;</em>
  <em><br/>S</em>
  <em>top doing wrong.</em>
</p><p>"It's what God wants."</p><p>
  <em>No. No. No. No.</em>
</p><p>She came up to him, and kissed him on the cheek, near the lips. Resignation, blind submission. She was broken, like a piece of glass.</p><p>"It's all right, Dave," she whispered. "We can heal together."</p><p>Her expression didn't match those words. She looked like a doll.</p><p>She would let anyone do anything they wanted to her, but just because she wasn't strong enough to fight back. Not after they told her to take off her clothes and lay on Dave's cot.</p><p>They both underestimated what human beings were capable of, despite all the cruel acts done through history for the cause of righteousness.</p><p>They just wanted to go home, be free.</p><p>Serena moved her hair away, and left her chest naked. Dave closed his eyes and counted up to ten, but when he opened them again, he was still in Hell.</p><p>"We don't need to heal from anything." He said, in a low voice. Serena didn't hear him, and neither did the guard.</p><p>"Help me heal."</p><p>Dave's mind went far, far away, and he had a vision, so similar to a dream.</p><p>*<br/><em>“Only an imperfect God can create imperfect beings. The concept of perfection doesn't exist, so how can it even be imagined?” </em></p><p>
  <em>Kurt was resting on his shoulder. Naked, without barriers. The unkempt hair, their intertwined legs. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Look at me. Us,” he said, brushing Dave's lips with his index finger. "Perfection exists because love does." </em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p>Dave entered Serena, and he felt her fingernails hurt his skin. They even provided him a condom.</p><p>He felt the urge to vomit, as he had to tell her what to do to make this not painful. He had to remember his past years, when he heard Puck and the guys talk about how to have sex with a girl so she also feels pleasure. Dave had pretended to be interested in those conversations, and they were still there, in the corner of his mind.</p><p>Serena followed all the instructions, so he didn't have to touch her, or even look at her naked body.</p><p>Dave never looked away from her eyes, as he remembered her in the librar. the pink highlighter she loved to use, her drawings.</p><p>Those smiles that were just for him.</p><p>If he had never approached her, she would be safe. She could live in love, and one day she would shine again, far away from this Hell. Bake cakes and wear bright colors.</p><p>He ruined it. Like he did for Kurt.</p><p>Dave's body worked like a machine, from the time they forced him to look at pornography and naked women. He dissociated from the images, but knew his body had to react to make them stop.</p><p>Dave thought he knew Hell before this day. <em>Oh,</em> how wrong he was.</p><p>
  <em>God, if you exist, deliver us from evil.</em>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <a class="mce-item-anchor" id="Bookmark8" name="Bookmark8"></a>
  <em>"Love," repeated Dave. "Love is not perfect. There is no love without pain."</em>
</p><p>“<em>I</em><em> love you, but why does it hurt me so much?</em><em>” he wondered, in his mind.</em></p><p>
  <em>Kurt smiled at him, his white teeth and pink lips. “Maybe that's what God wanted. By creating evil, he introduced us to good. Happiness exists because pain exists too, and love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Perhaps we avidly seek perfection, but true perfection is the balance of the universe. Maybe love is perfect because pain is also part of it and makes us appreciate true joy.”</em>
</p><p><em>*<br/></em>Serena's innocence was stained with sin, and Dave was responsible. He couldn't look at her, or think about her.</p><p>She looked him in the eye, seeing his pain. This time her smile was real. It reminded him of the first winter snow, the feeling of hot sand on his feet, a shooting star and a wish that would come true.</p><p>She was love, even in pain.</p><p>“I love you,” she whispered in his ear. Their bodies were still conjoined, but still they didn't break.</p><p>“I love you too.”</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>"You are perfect the way you are." Dave couldn't help but believe Kurt.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He cried in Kurt's arms, holding him tight. "God lives in you. You are the real miracle."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That painful love made him feel alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Don't worry," Kurt whispered to him. “I am here, my darling. Nobody can hurt you anymore."</em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Serena lost herself in his embrace, and Dave sang for the first time, being close to her.</p><p>They lay down next to each other, singing lullabies. As if they were children, trying to fall asleep.</p><p>Mark Walker was dead, but Dave Karofsky wanted to live.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dave inhaled, and with a smile he focused on the many skyscrapers of New York. Long concrete columns that seemed to touch the sky, monuments erected to get as close as possible to God.</p><p>Each window hid a daily life - a friendship, a love, a mourning, a joy. Without realizing it, he too had become part of that whirlwind of lives, noises, emotions.</p><p>Hell was only a dark memory, which his brain transformed into continuous nightmares every time he fell asleep.</p><p>He used to wake up screaming, night after night. He still did, more often that he would like to admit.</p><p>The scars on his back were the silent testimony of his past.</p><p>Serena was his travel companion, and in her arms, Dave had started living again. It was a love comprised of glances, of tenderness, of complicity. A feeling that blossomed in a dark cell, between tears, but which had blossomed, shining with its own light.</p><p>They reminded each other to never give up. He believed in love, thanks to her.</p><p>*<br/>
<em>"Please David!" Paul grabbed his arm, but Dave wriggled, as if his father's hand was made of fire. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."</em></p><p>
  <em>No apology would erase his guilt, and Dave had to look away. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>His mother held her face in her hands, sitting on the kitchen table. “We just wanted you to heal. Hell, David. I didn't want my child to burn in Hell!"</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination</em>
  <em>.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>"Hell?" Repeated Dave, scornfully, with a grimace. “I've spent the past</em>
  <em> eighteen months</em>
  <em> in Hell, Mom. And you knew it! You knew what would happen! They brainwashed me, they whipped me, they ...” He bit his lips.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He could never have said those words out loud. What they had forced him to do. </em>
  <em>If he had said it, he would have burst into tears in front of them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You know what they forced me to do," he concluded, without going into details. "But do you know what, Debra?" he went on, challenging her with his eyes and using her name as an insult.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He grabbed her shoulders. It seemed strange that she had once seemed so big to him. When she still loved to hold him in her arms, and Dave played with her long light hair. "I'm still the same cock-sucking fag who stepped through that door </em>
  <em>eighteen months </em>
  <em>ago!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She began to tremble.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Look at me!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But still her blue eyes refused to meet his.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I'm sorry," Paul cried once again, as if he wasn't able to say anything else. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>But Dave didn't want to hear anything.</em>
</p><p>“<em>You made a choice, Dad. Me or her. " Anger and pain made him shake. "And you chose her."</em></p><p>
  <em>Paul dropped to his knees, but Dave only shook his head in disgust. He had waited for his father for over </em>
  <em>five hundred </em>
  <em>days, but he hadn't saved him. By now, to Dave he was only a stranger.</em>
</p><p>
  <a id="Bookmark10" name="Bookmark10"></a>
  <em>He went up the stairs, and found that his bedroom had remained intact. Not even the trash had been emptied. There was still his old math textbook open on the desk, next to his Game Boy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The model airplanes he had built with his father were above the bed, like always.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He didn't look at those sheets, but grabbed some of his old toys, his clothes, the CDs that he loved to listen to repeatedly. He put them in a bag without looking at them for too long.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He ran out of air when he saw his McKinley school yearbook, abandoned at the bottom of the closet.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He sat on the floor, and traced its contours with his fingers. He would have laughed if his life hadn't been such a tragedy. His smiling face in the McKinley Titans photo seemed to belong to another person. Dave no longer recognized himself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was a past of which he remembered only traces, shadows. Like the life that belonged to another boy, whose body he had shared for a short period of time.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Except something was still burning inside him, a ghost of the past.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dave tore out the page with the photo of the Glee Club, which he had previously defaced with a black highlighter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What a stupid and scared little boy he had been.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He folded it carefully and slipped it into his wallet.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Going down the stairs, he realized that he would never set foot in that house again.</em>
</p><p>*</p><p><a id="Bookmark11" name="Bookmark11"></a>Serena was a girl from another era. She seemed to come out of one of those old films where women wore full skirts and cooked apple pies. She had taught him how make pastries and do laundry. While she said that housework relaxed her, Dave felt the need to learn and help.</p><p>They chose to move to a shoebox in New York, and divided their time between part-time jobs and going to college. Dave studied marketing, while Serena chose art. To her, painting was as healing as numbers were to Dave.</p><p>Some months could be hard, but they were lucky enough to always have money for food and clothes.</p><p>Serena also loved to dance, and often hugged him, improvising waltzes in the living room and twirling like a butterfly. It was too easy to forget what had been done to her.</p><p>"I love you," she said, caressing his face with her hands. "And you're beautiful."</p><p>Every note in her voice had the sweet tone of a song.</p><p>They both laughed, and Dave kissed her palms and repeated the same words to her.</p><p>Their flat was small, and Dave offered to sleep on the sofa, but Serena loved to slip between the sheets with him and fall asleep on his chest. Dave secretly waited for her because she made him feel like he wasn’t alone.</p><p>For the first time, he knew unconditional love.</p><p>He let her choose the movies they watched in their free time. Her favorite was <em>The Wizard of Oz</em>.</p><p>Both still felt like they were in the middle of a tornado. It hurt, and it never ended.</p><p>Serena always asked him which guys he would like to kiss, every time they watched a movie together, but Dave didn't answer those questions at first. He started to sweat, and he looked around cautiously. He was still afraid of punishment, of that belt that struck his body.</p><p>But Serena, chuckling, had confided that she had always dreamed of kissing Judy Garland.</p><p>Slowly, Dave had begun to believe that one day he would fall in love and not feel guilty.</p><p>*<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>"What can I get you?" Serena turned the notepad in her hands, watching the two men read over the choices of food on the menu for what had to be the tenth time.</p><p>She didn't like to wear the restaurant uniform, but it was always a better option than the unbearable work at McDonald's, which had been her first job.</p><p>New York City was a city full of possibilities, and Serena knew she was only at the beginning of her journey. She was trying to save money to put towards opening a pastry shop one day, like she had wanted from since she was just a little girl.</p><p>She wanted to buy Dave a decent shirt because she was sure she had seen a hole in the striped one he always wore.</p><p>"I recommend the scrambled eggs with fruit salad garnish."</p><p>One of the two men gave her a look that she preferred to ignore, and she unconsciously stepped back and smoothed her skirt, trying to make it look longer than it was. She hurriedly took their orders and took refuge in the bathroom, trying to breathe.</p><p>Dave had bought her shorts to wear over her underwear to feel less exposed, but she insisted on looking strong.</p><p>At that moment she really wished she had listened to him.</p><p>She washed her face and straightened her long brown braids. She still had a childlike face, round with rosy cheeks. She knew she hadn't changed much since her high school days.</p><p>She grabbed the golden cross hung on her neck and held it. She never took it off.</p><p>Serena still believed in God, but her God would never consider love a sin.</p><p>*</p><p><a id="Bookmark12" name="Bookmark12"></a>Serena loved Dave's hands. They were much larger than hers and they made her feel safe. They were strong, yet surprisingly soft and gentle.</p><p>She liked to play with his fingers, and kiss them one by one. It made him smile, and she also loved that. She often tickled his sides just to hear him laugh.</p><p>It would have been simple to be a couple, but by now Serena had stopped pretending to be someone she wasn't.</p><p>He was the family she chose, and they didn't need kisses, or sex. Dave liked boys and she liked girls. It was perfect that way, because they were made like that by God himself.</p><p>They promised to love themselves in the same way they loved each other.</p><p>"I want to tell you about Amy," she said to him one night while playing with his hands.</p><p>Dave gave her a questioning look.</p><p>She answered with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You told me about Kurt. I want to tell you about Amy."</p><p>Dave held her, and she closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of his aftershave.</p><p>"You don't have to," he replied. "Not if you don't really want to."</p><p>Serena shook her head. "I want to."</p><p>Their whispers dissolved into the air like a fog, like music.</p><p>“She was tall, a lot taller than me,” she chuckled, giving herself over to the warm waves of her memory. “And she had long red hair that ran down her back, which she preferred to keep tied in a ponytail. She played basketball, and wrote songs."</p><p>She saw her again. Her freckled face, her brown eyes, her messy writing, and her nails always painted green.</p><p>Amy had a good word for everyone, and before bedtime she liked to tell Jesus about her day. She used to kneel on the bed, her hands folded and her eyes closed, but she never used to recite the prayers she learned by memory.</p><p><a id="Bookmark13" name="Bookmark13"></a>Amy said that Jesus was probably tired of always hearing the same sentences.</p><p>“I saw her for the first time outside the church, while she was petting a stray cat. Her mother told her not to, that it could have had some disease, but she insisted that everyone needed a caress to be happy. She liked animals and wanted to be a vet."</p><p>Such a young life, taken by the hatred of the world. Serena didn't even have a photograph of Amy.</p><p>“I knew it was her, Dave. I knew it. I stayed at school late, just to watch her play. She used the shirt to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and I blushed like a child. They said I would feel this way the first time I fell in love with a boy, but Amy was the only one for me."</p><p>She squeezed Dave's hand harder. God, she loved those hands.</p><p>“I pretended to need tutoring, just to spend the afternoons with her. I was happy to even breathe the same air. But one day she kissed me ... on the lips."</p><p>And Dave cried, because he knew that story didn't have a happy ending.</p><p>Both of their lives had changed because of a kiss. His and Serena's.</p><p>“I returned the kiss and thought that nothing in the world could be more perfect. Her lips smelled of vanilla ice cream, and the skin on her cheek was soft as velvet. I loved her.”</p><p>Their tears wet the pillow.</p><p>"I couldn't imagine that my mom would enter at that exact same time, with a tray of chocolate cupcakes."</p><p>Her voice became a choked sob, but she was sure Amy would never want to see her cry.</p><p>"If Amy was still alive, she would have been a great vet." She forced herself to smile.</p><p>Dave nodded. "I'm sure of it," he said.</p><p>But unfortunately Amy had preferred to die.</p><p>Serena wondered if she had made up a prayer or wrote a song before killing herself.</p><p>*</p><p><a id="Bookmark14" name="Bookmark14"></a>Serena had almost forgotten that Kurt, unlike Amy, was not just a memory.</p><p>Kurt lived under the same sky. He wasn't a ghost, and he didn't exist only within the confines of that photograph that Dave loved to look at.</p><p>When she saw Kurt sipping a cup of coffee in the same restaurant where she worked, Serena's heart stopped in her chest.</p><p>His features had become more mature, his hair had been cut differently, yet she could not be wrong.</p><p>She took a step towards him, with her usual notepad held in her hands and the too-short skirt she was slowly getting used to.</p><p>"Ku-Kurt?"</p><p>He looked at her confused, trying to remember, perhaps, if he had ever seen her before.</p><p>"You don't know me. My name is Serena Karofsky... "</p><p>Kurt's eyes widened, and he accidentally let the coffee fall onto the table.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>Kurt was shaking, sitting on the floor and with puff red eyes, staring at Dave's back as he walked away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He still murmured his apologies, even though Dave could no longer hear them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kurt wanted to stop him, run towards him. He would apologize to him until he lost his voice. </em>
  <em>He felt his heart in his throat, his lips dry. He inhaled and exhaled.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The cell phone vibrated in his bag. It was brand new because Dave had broken the last one before they argued in the boy's locker room.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The one confrontation that ended with a kiss.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kurt guessed it was one of Blaine's countless texts, making his phone vibrate. In those few days, he had shared more with him than he ever had with Rachel or Mercedes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Blaine made him feel less alone.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kurt still hadn't had the courage to tell him what had happened to Dave, and he didn't know if he ever would. He hated the thought of being angry with Blaine as much as he was angry with himself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He felt the paper touch his hand, the corners prick his skin. Dave had given him something. It looked like folded note, similar to what the guys used to pass to each other during lessons.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With a sigh, Kurt read the last words written by Dave.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Once, twice.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He held them to his chest and cried again.</em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Dave Karofsky had disappeared from the corridors of McKinley and Lima after being forced out of the closet. His name was never spoken by anyone. Like the character in a dream, which slowly faded from memory.</p><p>The only thread that connected Dave and Kurt to each other was the poetry that Dave had written to him before disappearing into thin air.</p><p>It was a weak connection, but that poem was always present and indelible in his soul, as if it had been imprinted with fire. Kurt could have said it backwards.</p><p>It was his secret, which nobody had ever known, not even Blaine. He had read it, and reread it, until he consumed the paper.</p><p>In the past, he wondered where Dave was, but he was afraid to find out because those words were perfect, and reality could be cruel. Kurt knew that too well.</p><p>When he saw Dave again, Kurt felt his heart in his throat. Reflexively, he tried to hide behind Serena's back.</p><p>He felt apprehension, trepidation, fear, embarrassment, joy, and saw the same emotions reflected in Dave's eyes.</p><p>The realization of who was in front of him, the surprise and the silence.</p><p>Kurt didn't believe in fate, and he didn't believe in God. His wide-eyed innocence and dreams of a Prince Charming had died with the devastating revelation that his first love had cheated on him.</p><p>He had grown up and changed, and the boy Dave thought he loved no longer existed.</p><p>Yet with a smile, he recited that poem in his mind once more.</p><p>*</p><p><a id="Bookmark15" name="Bookmark15"></a>Dave loved Kurt as people love someone impossible to have. Like a celebrity, or the main character of a novel.</p><p>He didn't really know Kurt, but at sixteen he just had to admire his way of walking with his head held high in the corridor of McKinley, as if the whole school belonged to him.</p><p>That love hurt, and Dave had preferred to hate Kurt rather than hate himself.</p><p>Kurt dressed in that bizarre, but incredibly attractive way. Kurt wasn't hiding, and he could shout to the world that he was gay while winning a football game by making a whole team dance to a Beyonce song.</p><p>To him, Kurt was like a kaleidoscope. So many seemingly contrasting parts that when viewed from different angles all seemed to compliment each other rather than clash.</p><p>Kurt had that delicate face, those long lashes and that porcelain skin, but Dave loved him because Kurt was more of a man than Dave could ever become.</p><p>He had loved the idea of Kurt, and hated that he loved that idea. It was a vicious circle he couldn't escape from.</p><p>He had fought against that feeling, until he turned into a monster.</p><p>*</p><p>A month passed from their serendipitous yet trepidatious reunion, and during that time Kurt spent a lot of time with Dave. They went shopping, to the cinema, they cooked, and watched movies together.</p><p>It was while watching Kurt asleep on his shoulder after a <em>Lord of the Ring</em> marathon that Dave knew for sure he loved <em>Kurt.</em> Not the high school idea of him. Not the character he made up in his mind. He loved the person behind the perceived perfection he had always associated with him,</p><p>He was not the unreachable boy he used to fantasize about, and he didn't need to be.</p><p>Kurt wasn't perfect, and Dave didn't want him to be perfect. He wanted Kurt to stand up to him, he liked it that sometimes he needed his space, he adored to be scolded by him for the mess, and enjoyed hearing sarcastic comments about his head being in the clouds.</p><p>He loved him because Kurt was Kurt.</p><p>Dave kissed his forehead, and placed the blanket on his legs. Kurt always had cold feet, while Dave was hot even during the winter.</p><p>Serena looked at them with a knowing smile, and Dave blushed.</p><p>She and Kurt really liked each other. In his mind, they were the perfect pair. Kurt sang, and Serena danced.</p><p>Dave was happy just by looking at them, knowing that the only two people he loved also loved each other.</p><p>He wondered if Kurt would ever love him too. Not as friend or as someone he thought of with regrets.</p><p>They had tried to destroy him, but Dave was alive, and he loved. Even if Kurt never returned his feelings, Dave promised himself that he would never stop loving.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.</em>
</p><p>Dave told Kurt what had happened to him, his time in the religious conversion boarding school.</p><p>He thought it would be difficult topic to talk about, but his words emerged from his mouth like a swollen river. For the first time, he also told someone what he had done to Serena.</p><p>“We wanted to go home, to be far away from that horrible place. I thought that if we married each other, they would let us go. It happened before. They would let us graduate sooner if we proved to be healed.”</p><p>Kurt was shaking.</p><p>“But we couldn't imagine what they would force us to do. What they would force <em>me</em> to do.”</p><p>Dave now knew it was called "corrective rape." They wanted to make them straight by forcing them to have sex with each other. Their marriage wasn't enough. It had to be real, not being made of papers.</p><p>Dave felt a surge of nausea, thinking of how many kids were going through something like that in that exact same moment as he was speaking. And how many would not survive it.</p><p>He expected to be judged, but Kurt's expression of horror was reserved for the abusers, and Dave wasn't one of them in his eyes. He held him tightly, and Dave breathed through him. It was like they were sharing the same body.</p><p>“Me and Serena made up a story to tell people asking us why we share the same last name. We told we were brother and sister. We grew up in Ohio, and we moved from an abusive family. We never got close enough to anyone for them to question it. We stayed married for a year to get our independence aid, for college.”</p><p>Dave took another long breath.</p><p>“Serena decided to keep my last name after the divorce. We really are family, even if we don't share the same blood.”</p><p>Dave felt free in Kurt’s arms, as if the chains that kept him tied to the past had broken. He couldn't change what had happened, but he had his future back in his own hands. Kurt would be in it, as a friend at least, and Dave was okay with that because he could no longer imagine his life without Kurt in it.</p><p>Soon, it was Kurt's turn to tell him a secret.</p><p>‘<em>Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’</em></p><p>"Do you remember Blaine?"</p><p>Dave shook his head.</p><p>"The guy who was with me <em>that</em> day." Kurt's gaze focused on the floor, and he swallowed.</p><p><em>"Oh."</em> Dave said no more. He remembered Blaine perfectly, but had never known his name.</p><p>"We were together for a year and a half," Kurt continued. "I thought we would get married, and that we would be together forever. People thought we were similar, apparently, even though Blaine seemed to have a different kind of charisma. Everyone loved Blaine, even if he didn't do anything to be loved by them. Blaine was one of the guys, and I wasn't. He could love musicals and dress like a crayon tin, but nobody ever questioned his masculinity."</p><p>Dave felt an instinctive contempt for Blaine, and it had nothing to do with their first and only meeting. He didn't like how Kurt was talking about him.</p><p><a id="Bookmark16" name="Bookmark16"></a>“At the beginning it was about small little things. Blaine loved being in the center of attention, and I ended up in the background. I accepted that he had more talent, that he was more masculine, that the boys accepted him as one of them."</p><p><em>Ridiculous</em>, Dave thought, but said nothing.</p><p>“Over time, Blaine had begun to isolate me. I don't know if I can explain myself. He liked that I only had him. He was not happy that I had male friends, or that I was successful when he failed. It was a constant competition, and I let him win because I thought this was what love was about. Blaine needed attention, to be the best in everything. He needed me to need him, and he made me firmly believe that no one besides him would ever love me."</p><p>"That is ... wrong, Kurt. That's not love."</p><p>Kurt nodded.</p><p>Dave hoped, prayed, that this person was not still in Kurt's life.</p><p>Dave had visible scars, anyone could see that he had been hurt. Kurt's scars were more subtle. They had left no marks except on his self-esteem.</p><p>Dave was naive enough to think that after he was out of the picture, nobody would have ever hurt Kurt anymore. Kurt should have been able to sing and be happy.</p><p>He was too caught up in his own Hell, and he couldn't imagine Kurt was dealing with something so different, yet so similar.</p><p>Both were made to believe they were wrong.</p><p>"When I came to New York, it only took two weeks of being apart for Blaine to sleep with someone else."</p><p>Dave had to count to ten, to keep from saying anything. He bit his lips, feeling a shiver of anger rise up his spine.</p><p>He could not believe that Kurt, the boy who had faced him with his cutting words so many years before, who showed courage beyond all logic and perhaps a little reckless, could be trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship for that long.</p><p>"Five months later, I forgave him and told him that I wanted him to be part of my life again. After two days he asked me to marry him."</p><p>This time, Dave had to break his silence. "Are you fucking kidding me...?"</p><p>Kurt had to laugh. "Oh, definitely not. We were both wearing ridiculous suits, and he had invited three show choir groups, a marching band, and all my friends. He serenaded me with “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles."</p><p>He took a long breath. Dave was ready to swear again because that story was ridiculous, and he wanted to punch a pillow right now, imagining it to be Blaine's face.</p><p>“But I said no to him. Because of you."</p><p>Anger dissipated like fog in the sun.</p><p>Dave wasn't sure if the noise he heard was the striking of a clock or his heart that was starting to beat too fast.</p><p>"Me?"</p><p>Kurt took his hand. It was a light touch, like that time in the corridor. His face had turned purple.</p><p>“<em>Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me</em><em><br/>
</em><em>with a look, standing here while cool late light</em><em><br/>
</em><em>dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,</em><em><br/>
</em><em>but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,</em><em><br/>
</em><em>inventing love, until the calls of nightjars</em><em><br/>
</em><em>interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,</em><em><br/>
</em><em>into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.</em><em>“</em></p><p>A sweet smile appeared on Kurt's lips, welcoming, almost childlike, similar to the warm colors of a dream from which no one would have wanted to wake up.</p><p>“I knew I deserved more – because of you."</p><p>Kurt told him about how he got his life back on his feet, jumped back into his studies and work, looked at himself in the mirror and learned to love himself again.</p><p>“Imet Adam a few months after my breakup with Blaine, and he was his opposite. He complimented me, and he didn't stop until I accepted his compliments. He taught me to love and to be loved. It didn’t last long because we were both at crossroads and our paths took us in different directions. When he moved back to England, I didn’t cry because we were still best friends. His love healed me. It wasn't sexual, but it was my choice. Adam loved me as a person, not because I provided something for him. We could cuddle in the same bed, and we wouldn't ask each other for anything else.”</p><p>Dave had Serena, Kurt had Adam. He should have felt a touch of jealousy, but he couldn't stop smiling. He was happy that Kurt had had someone who had loved him unconditionally, without wanting anything in return.</p><p>It was the love that everyone deserved.</p><p>"David?" The grasp of their hands became more solid. Dave felt the blood throbbing in their veins.</p><p>"I had never seen Serena before, but she knew what I looked like."</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he had forgotten about that.</p><p>Dave blushed and showed Kurt the yearbook photo, which was still in his wallet. The anchor he had clung to for years.</p><p>"It saved my life, more than once. You saved me."</p><p>Kurt traced his still childlike features in his photo, badly cut and worn out by time. He imagined Dave finding courage looking at this picture while Kurt recited Carol Ann Duffy's poem that Dave had dedicated to him.</p><p>They were two distinct universes that touched each other continuously, but never met.</p><p>Until now. They met <em>now.</em></p><p>Their lips touched for the second time in their lives. This time there was no anger or fear. It was delicate, comforting, tender. It was healing wounds, visible and invisible.</p><p>It was a kiss that asked for nothing in return.</p><p>Kurt wrapped his arms around Dave's neck, and he caressed his cheek. His lashes tickled Dave's skin.</p><p>It was beauty, it was light, it was love.</p><p>
  <em>And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*</em>
</p><p><a id="Bookmark17" name="Bookmark17"></a>The first time they made love, Dave refused to take off his shirt. Even when he took a shower he preferred not to look at or remember his scars. He didn't want Kurt to see them. They were ugly. They reminded him of being the Devil, of deserving punishment, of being somebody who couldn't be loved.</p><p>
  <em>Love is patient, love is kind. </em>
</p><p>"I love you," Kurt whispered to him. "And I want all of you."</p><p>Everything also meant pain. Scars, memories, faults.</p><p>Serena had taught him about unconditional love. Loving someone completely, without secrets or barriers. That was the love he wanted to give Kurt.</p><p>
  <em>It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. </em>
</p><p>Kurt kissed him again and again, and Dave wished it would never end.</p><p>Dave didn't know anything about gay sex. He didn't even let himself thinking about it too much. It was something that he knew existed, and he thought would feel good.</p><p>Before going to Hell, he wanted to know what it would feel like to touch and be touched, to make another person feel pleasure. It was mostly about getting each other off, the physical aspect.</p><p>Now it was different because he knew about love, and what he wanted the most was that connection, allowing Kurt to see him like nobody had before, sharing the most intimate and meaningful bond.</p><p>It would not be forced. It was their choice.</p><p>"Please." Kurt's voice became more sensual.</p><p>Dave shivered with pleasure.</p><p>Unconsciously, he recited the prayers he had memorized at the conversion camp. In his head, one by one. They felt like empty, meaningless words, as Kurt's lips ran down his neck, leaving warm kisses and his hands went lower, and lower.</p><p>"Give me all of you."</p><p>And Dave took off his clothes. He lay bare, in front of his loved one.</p><p>
  <em>It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, </em>
</p><p>His scars would never heal, they were his true divine punishment. Even in that perfect moment, he couldn't forget that he was once the Devil.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he whispered. "For what I did to you." He imagined that Kurt would be disgusted with it, seeing those scars, but felt his lips tracing them. It was like a butterfly touch.</p><p>"I'm sorry too," said Kurt.</p><p>
  <em>It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. </em>
</p><p>“I am here, my darling. Nobody can hurt you anymore."</p><p>Dave was sure he had imagined those same words, a long time ago.</p><p>*</p><p><a id="Bookmark18" name="Bookmark18"></a>Dave knelt on the wet grass, and touched the marble of the tombstone, wet with rain. Someone had brought flowers and a rainbow flag.</p><p><em>Mark Walker</em>, it said. Died after experiencing his own Hell.</p><p>If he had still been alive, he would have been twenty-four. Living a different life, meeting someone who would help him forget.</p><p>Dave never met Mark, but he felt close to him, like he was the brother he never had.</p><p>"I'm sorry you're not here, that you didn't make it."</p><p>
  <em>He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.</em>
</p><p>He wiped away his tears, and left a Michael Jackson CD next to the bunch of fresh flowers on the tombstone.</p><p>"I don't want you to feel bored, surrounded by all those angels." He laughed to himself. "And if you see Amy, tell her that Serena never stopped loving her."</p><p>It started raining again, and the droplets of water trickled down Dave's face. The sky also seemed to cry.</p><p>Dave walked towards the car at a slow pace, with his clothes and hair soaked.</p><p>He only smiled when he saw Kurt, waiting for him, sitting in the car.</p><p>*</p><p><br/>
"I love you, and you are beautiful." Dave lifted Serena's white veil, and kissed her forehead before gently placing it back as it had been.</p><p>A princess dressed in white tulle, with light barely-there makeup and a bouquet of lilies in her velvet glove covered hands.</p><p>His princess, his sister. Dave had never seen her more radiant.</p><p>She grabbed his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. Together they walked down the aisle to get to the altar.</p><p>Danielle smiled at them, also dressed in white but with a more demure dress and a silver tiara in her black hair.</p><p>“I leave her to you. Take good care of her,” he smiled.</p><p>The two girls intertwined their fingers. Dave was moved, watching them get lost in each other's gaze. He was sure that Amy, wherever she was, was watching them.</p><p>
  <em>And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. </em>
</p><p>Dave went back to sit next to Kurt. Lucy clapped her little hands, playing on Kurt's lap. Dave couldn't help but kiss both her cheeks, her forehead, and the tip of her nose.</p><p>She chuckled and Dave's heart melted. She had the same eyes as Kurt, and brown curls that covered her ears. At home, she couldn't stop running around, but in public places she knew how to be silent and behave. She was just one year old, and she was already too smart for her own good. Dave couldn't be more proud.</p><p>
  <em>Whoever lives in love lives in God,</em>
</p><p>Kurt was smiling at him with a tear running down his cheek, and he kissed Lucy softly on her head.</p><p>They were genuinely happy. That kind of happiness that makes you cry because you hardly believe it's real.</p><p>
  <em>And God in them.</em>
</p><p>People often talked about miracles.</p><p>Jesus walked on the water, and he could bring the dead back to life. Miracles were about blind people who started seeing again, or people in wheelchairs who were able to walk.</p><p>Dave didn't experience this kind of miracle, but he felt blessed. His best friend found enough courage to love again, despite what was done to her, and he did too.</p><p>To remind himself how far he had come he looked at his husband's hand on the top of his own and saw their matching wedding bands. Their angelic daughter was sitting on Kurt's lap, nearly asleep with her little head resting against his chest.</p><p>With a smile he knew what was probably the biggest truth of life.</p><p>The real miracle was being able to love and be loved in return.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Big, big thank you to Elle Delajoie for being my beta and getting through this story at least 3 times. You really are the best!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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